Author's notes: Obito's story about the two different mother hens is a true story from my childhood.

Also, for those readers who wandered in and have no familiarity with Litter of Misfits, and are unfamiliar with my interpretation of the Inuzuka Clan, I want to discuss olfaction, and rave on why it's the underdog super power in Naruto's world. I'll start with this quote from a research piece I found:

"Dogs' sense of smell overpowers our own by orders of magnitude—it's 10,000 to 100,000 times as acute, scientists say. "Let's suppose they're just 10,000 times better," says James Walker, former director of the Sensory Research Institute at Florida State University, who, with several colleagues, came up with that jaw-dropping estimate during a rigorously designed, oft-cited study. "If you make the analogy to vision, what you and I can see at a third of a mile, a dog could see more than 3,000 miles away and still see as well."
Dogs' dazzling sense of smell, by Peter Johnson. (you'll have to search for this title, since Fanfiction whose-dot-net-it-won't-let-me-add is stupid and likes to strip out actual web links.)

This is why Tsume was able to smell the arsenic and can even smell emotions and lies, and why Kakashi, who canonically has a sense of smell 1000x stronger than a ninken, says there's no such thing as an odorless poison. With olfaction that powerful, Kakashi should be able to effortlessly track everyone across the entire world.

(Kishimoto dropped the ball, man. He really dropped the ball. And me, being me, snatched up said ball and am hightailing it for the hills, dragging every single one of the characters who are related to the Inuzuka clan along for the ride.)

After a hearty breakfast and his belly warmed with mint-and-jasmine tea, Sasori dragged himself back to the tent he had spent a (mostly sleepless night) with Kakashi (it was hard to sleep with a rampant imagination fueled by dreams of revenge waring with the disgusting thoughts of Tsume's lectures, to say nothing of how trapped her felt, surrounded by wary, untrusting Konoha nin) to privately struggle with getting dressed in the clean clothes that Tsume's aunt had packed for him. No one offered to help (although Rin offered to look over his wounds, which he not-so-politely ignored), so there weren't any witnesses to how badly he floundered and rolled on the ground, trying to pull on the brown woolen trousers that Tsume's "bitchy aunt" had packed for him.

Unfortunately, Inuzuka Bashira hadn't thought of packing him underwear, and Sasori refused to wear any underpants decorated with uchiwa, since Obito was the only one whose underwear would fit. (Kakashi was even smaller than Sasori, and no one suggested he use Rin's panties. Because. No. Just, no. The Konoha nin were morons, but not that unintelligent.) His abdominal muscles twitched and cramped in pain from yesterday's hours of balancing on Ichi and Tsume's backs as they had crossed Wind. He hadn't felt this sore since he had been ten years old, accompanying a team of Suna chuunin acting as guards for a nomadic horse breeder who insisted that his entire entourage ride his prized steeds to the Autumn Bizarre for that year's auction. It made sitting upright or even bending forward to thread his stumps through the trouser legs supremely uncomfortable. And since the trousers weren't meant for amputees, the legs were too long.

Sasori contemplated chopping off the extra length, and then realized he had a snowball's chance in the Suna sand dunes of Namikaze graciously loaning Sasori a kunai. In a foul mood, Sasori forced his swollen knees, the thick X of scar tissue stretching with an uncomfortable burn, to cross so he could reach and knot the trouser material closed. At least that would prevent a gap for cold air to sneak in. The dark green, long-sleeved cotton turtleneck was way too big, the sleeves hanging loose over his covered hand and his neckline gaping, and worse – it was a woman's turtleneck with subtle tucks in the chest to emphasis breasts.

"This is ridiculous," Sasori told Komushi, feeling like a small child playing dress up with his mother's wardrobe. He didn't mind loose garments – they provided much-needed ventilation in the desert – but there was an obvious difference in the drapes of a garment deliberately designed to be loose, and the drape of a garment meant for someone taller, wider, and bustier. And since he had no intention of dragging the lengthy hem of the included blue cloak through the half-frozen leaves littering the outside, he just layered with two more turtlenecks and an elk fur-lined poncho that smelled like dust, mothballs, and stale saliva. The mink-fur balaclava was sensationally soft and warm, and was the only part of his wardrobe that he adored. He spent two soothing minutes just stroking the mink fur in his hands, because nothing soft like this existed in Suna. The fur of desert hares and red foxes was coarse, stiff, and thin – like the elk-fur poncho. Aunt Bashira had packed two balaclavas, and Sasori decided that Komushi should match.

"You are beautiful," Sasori whispered to his only friend.

Komushi, with the silent, unmoving exterior of a puppet, looked distant, but his poison dart frog-green eyes twinkled as if he wanted to share in Sasori's appreciation of beauty.

Sasori gently rubbed his left stump through the thick trouser material, hoping it would alleviate the nagging phantom itch of his left big toe. It alleviated nothing, and only made his stump throb more in reminder of its traumatic condition. He should put fresh dressings his stumps…

Later. He'd do it later.

Securing Komushi to his back, Sasori emerged into the soft, early morning light.

Right into a heated argument between Tsume and Namikaze.

"I am eighteen years old! I don't need a babysitter!"

Namikaze looked like he hadn't slept a wink last night as he scrubbed one hand across his face. "Tsume, they're not babysitters. They're retired friends who volunteered to keep you company."

"No! I'm a grown adult, and Sasori is a jounin. It's insulting to think that we need a babysitter!"

They both fell quiet then, staring unblinking at each other. With a sigh, Namikaze shook his head. "Tsume, why don't you go take a bath?"

She crossed her arms, yesterday's dried clay flaking from her skin, in front of her chest, clearly outraged. "Are you out of your blooming mind, Mooncalf? The rivers are running with snow melt this time of year, and the water will freeze my tits off. Aunt Bashira didn't pack any formula or bottles to feed Hana if my nipples fall off."

"I promise it will be a hot bath."

"Hah, pull the other leg. We're currently stuck in one of the few countries on this continent that doesn't have any natural hot springs."

Namikaze gently grasped Tsume's shoulders. "Tsume, between Kakashi's douton jutsu, my suiton jutsu, and Obito's katon jutsu, we will build you a bathtub-sized basin fit for a Daimyo, and fill it with hot water."

Tsume ran a hand through her hair, dislodging some frozen leaves, a few sticks, and a moss-covered rock the size of a robin's egg. "Well, I do smell pretty bad. And so does Hana."

"You sure do," Kakashi muttered as he rubbed Ni's belly.

"And my stomach muscles are sore." Tsume wrestled with her misgivings. "I think I pulled something important when I was pushing, and, well, it would be wasteful to ignore the eucalyptus bath salts that Aunt Bashira included."

Namikaze nodded sagely as he successfully led Tsume to the edge of their clearing, slipping Hana into the crook of his elbow. "After the last week of running around that you've had, you deserve some pampering. But I think Hana is a little too young to soak in bath salts. We should clean her up, first." Kakashi trailed after the adults, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. Obito hastily picked through Tsume's supplies to select some clean clothes, mesh panties that were nothing more than over glorified gauze, a pad that looked more like an adult diaper, an actual diaper, a pink pajama onesie decorated with cartoonish yellow ducks wearing bright red galoshes, and then hurried after.

Sasori dragged himself over to Rin, who was cleaning up the breakfast dishes in a small wooden basin filled with warm water. Steam swirled from the surface, but more from the temperature difference between the dish water and the cold morning air.

"Ryo for your thoughts?" Rin asked as she handed him a drying towel and a fire-hardened clay plate.

"Konoha nin engage in far too much pampering on their missions."

Rin grinned. "Oh, trust me, Sasori-kun, this isn't the norm for Konoha nin. The Inuzuka clan just happens to have certain expectations on how to bring along all the comforts of home, left over from their nomadic days. They didn't have any winter or summer settlements the way that the Uchiha, the Hyuuga, or the Senju clans did, so they had to carry all of their earthly possessions everywhere."

"The desert nomads in Wind are still carrying all their earthly possessions everywhere, and they don't have bath salts."

"There isn't enough water in Wind to enjoy bath salts. That's why the desert nomads carry so many perfumes instead."

Sasori reluctantly conceded that the geographical differences between Fire and Wind probably contributed to how cultural expectations defined pampering and comfort. "Why would you know about the differences?" Learning about Suna he could understand, as one of the Five Great Hidden Villages; nomadic tribes of Wind, however, was a different matter.

"Uchiha Fumiko-san, Obito's cousin by marriage two or three times removed – I'm not sure where they stand together on the family tree, actually – is a historian. Before the start of this war, she had published a fascinating paper highlighting the differences between Earth, Fire, and Wind nomads. Few of the other countries had nearly as many nomadic shinobi tribes before the creation of Hidden Villages."

Few of the Wind nomadic tribes, past or present, were true shinobi clans, although plenty of them boasted of fierce, experienced warriors who fought with chakra-enhanced skills similar to Iron's samurai, but unhindered by the morally strict Samurai Bushido. Every year, about two dozen or so youths (mostly boys, but the occasional runaway girl who refused to be stifled by their tribes' more traditional gender roles) from different nomadic tribes were welcomed into the Suna Academy. Sasori's mother had been one such nomadic daughter.

Sasori was mechanical as he dried and stacked the clean dishes. He used chakra threads to lift the basin of water and empty it over the side of the mountain. After dishes were stored away (Konoha nin sure love their storage scrolls), Rin added some more fuel to the fire and Obito sat cross-legged next to the warmth with Hana, who was mewling and sucking on a chubby fist. She was swaddled tight on a grass-green blanket with the folds covering the thick mat of dark hair, except for her little hand. Sasori eyed the uncovered tuft on her forehead, wondering if it was going to turn into the wild mass of tangled hedgehog locks that Tsume sported. He hoped, for Hana's sake, that it wouldn't. Ichi joined them, a relaxed guardian that settled next to Obito and rested his gigantic head on Obito's knee.

Rin covered her laughing smile with a hand. "Obito, you're such a mother hen!"

Obito grinned, unabashed. "Have you ever seen an actual mother hen, Rin? They're really sweet the way they cluck and coo over their chicks, calling when they find food. And when the chicks are cold or tired, Mama fluffs herself up like an angry cat and sits on them. I like watching my grandmother's chickens. They're so cute."

Sasori personally thought that domesticated chickens were obnoxious idiots that were 99% poop and 1% eggs and meat.

"Listen, last year, my grandmother had two hens that went broody about the same time. One mama sat on a dozen eggs, and the other mama sat on two. Ten from the clutch of dozen hatched, but only one from the set of two hatched. That happens, you know." Obito swayed with Hana, his nervous energy only slightly restrained. "That second mama, it didn't matter to her that she only had her one chick; it was her entire world. And then one day, something must've happened to her baby, like a cat killed it, because I found it dead in the corner of the yard. But Second Mama's instincts were so strong that she stayed two days next to her dead chick. She kept clucking at it, dropping food beside it, and even sat on it to keep it warm."

Rin's face fell. "Oh, Obito, that's so sad," she said, like she was a simpering civilian instead of a kunoichi being trained to kill people.

"I know, right? I felt really bad when I finally managed to bury the chick. Mama hen attacked me the first time I touched it. I thought she'd eventually figure out what happened if I left it there for two days, but no."

Chickens, Sasori thought, recalling the differences between them and the green jungle fowl he had seen in the Land of Swamps – brightly colored, skittish, and downright mean – had lost all their functioning brain cells through generations of domesticated breeding.

"The day after I buried that little chick, Second Mama went and acquired herself two more babies from First Mama."

"Really? And First Mama just let her?"

Obito shrugged. He shifted Hana to one arm so he could use his free hand to scratch Ichi's shoulder. "With ten chicks? I don't think she noticed the difference. I don't know if chickens can count higher than, like, four."

Sasori felt that the same could be said for an alarming number of human beings. He used his chakra threads to make another mug of tea with the water kettle, choosing to use Tsume's oolong instead of Team Minato's supply of pine needles, since it was the only tea bitter enough to match a weak coffee. And since it would've been rude to not include the genin, he made two more mugs for them.

"You are so cool, Sasori-kun!" Obito declared once Sasori had added the water to the crushed tea leaves to steep. "Those strings are amazing!"

As a prodigious child, Sasori had been quick in learning complicated skills and even quicker in applying the skills in the battlefield to defeat opponents twice his size and age. But such was expected of him. Chiyo demanded for more, pushed for more, lying through her yellow crooked teeth about the high expectations of his parents and how they wouldn't be able to come home to him until he had mastered this skill, or that technique, or had flawlessly memorized and understood the Krebs Cycle and developed three different poisons that directly disrupted it. His jounin sensei was equally unforgivable for flaws, and much less helpful when it came to learning. (Sasori begrudgingly admitted that Grandmother had taught him more than what his sensei even knew.)

Only his parents, through their rare letters sent from whatever country they were stationed in, fighting and running missions on behalf of Suna's safety and glory, praised and acknowledged his skills. His teammates, often older than Sasori, seethed with jealousy of how a child was often assigned team leadership because he outclassed them in skill and knowledge.

At the age of eleven, on the third-year anniversary of his chuunin promotion, when Sasori had presented a thorough diagram of the skills Chiyo had demanded that he master and the information he had been told to memorize, and proof that he had flawlessly met and surpassed every expectation, asked can my parents come home now?

Chiyo finally told him the truth.

His parents would never return home. And that she had been the one writing the letters for the last six fucking years. And there was nothing of his parents she could give him, because Hatake Sakumo destroyed their puppets after he killed them.

Little more than one year later, seated on a high mountain plateau far from the deserts he had grown up in, Sasori still burned with angry bitterness. You robbed me, he sent the sour thought towards Hatake Sakumo. You robbed me of anything that would've given me happiness and love. I will take the very same from you. I will destroy your world the same way you destroyed mine.

"Thanks," he told Obito, carefully keeping his face blank. "Makes it really easy to slip poison into other people's food and drinks."

Rin and Obito froze, stared with dawning horror at the mugs of tea they held, met each other's eyes, and then both yelled, "Kakashi!"

oOoOoOo

"Your tea is not poisoned," Kakashi said for the third time, now sounding like he was close to losing his temper. Sasori sipped his totally normal tea, reveling in the chaos, confusion, and fear the others held for him.

"But he's a Suna nin!" Obito snapped for the third time. "Poison is their bread and butter!"

"Tsume destroyed all of his poisons already, even the ones he had stashed in his two puppets, dumb ass."

Sasori would stab Tsume for that, later. When there weren't any witnesses like Namikaze around.

Obito sputtered. "You – he could've picked up more anywhere! Like maybe he mixed some of those hemlock needles into the tea leaves when we weren't looking. Even I know that hemlock is toxic! There's a lot of poisons that are odor and flavor free!"

The glare Kakashi leveled at Obito warmed the cold, dark lump in Sasori's chest. "First, there's no such thing as a truly tasteless and odorless poison. Second, there's no poison in your tea. And third, that hemlock is a member of the spruce family. We've been drinking tea for the last two days made from those needles because it's a good source of vitamin C."

Obito sputtered for a moment as his brain seized over the idea that he'd been having hemlock tea for the last two days without dying. "Poisons are so when you don't have a sense of smell that's like a bazillion times stronger than a bloodhound, Bakashi!"

"Sasori-kun," Rin gave him a pleading look, and then reluctantly tasted her tea, "please don't joke about poisons like that."

Sasori took a languid sip. "I never joke about poisons."

"See!" Obito gestured wildly at Sasori, his movements startling Hana, who immediately started wailing. "See! He's not joking about having poisoned our tea! Rin, no!" He then slapped the mug out of her hands, the tea splashing across her toes and the mug cracking when it struck the ground. The movement and jostling of Hana made her cries pitch even higher. Somewhere, there was glass wanting to shatter like Sasori's patience. Ichi nipped Obito's leg. "Ow!"

"I'm leaving to do a patrol," Kakashi growled, jamming his hands deep in his pocket.

"No!" Obito grabbed Kakashi, and found himself holding a large stick after Kakashi performed a kawarimi with a single, one-handed seal. "Gah! Stupid Bakashi!"

Damn. Not even Sasori could perform a single one-handed seal for the kawarimi.

oOoOoOo

Tsume looked and smelled better when she (limping) and Namikaze (smooth and silent, like a stalking bobcat) joined Sasori at the fire, her hair dripping water onto the collar of a cream-colored hanten secured with an unusual four different corded ties. Sasori puzzled over it, until she wordlessly took the still-crying Hana from Obito, undid the top two corded ties, and pulled one side off her shoulder to expose a breast. Rin had busied herself with packing the tents and cleaning up their camp site, and Obito insisted on staying close to the fire to keep Hana warm, but had been unsuccessful in quieting the caterwauling. (Sasori may or may not have been contemplating how to end the caterwauling, but had wisely concluded that drowning Hana in his teamug would've been a bad idea, especially for his own survival.)

Tsume positioned Hana, who immediately started nuzzling the breast. Tsume winced when Hana latched, and adjusted. "Where's that nipple shield, Minato?"

Sasori immediately redirected his gaze and studied the mountains. He stroked the smooth, lacquered length of Komushi's arm, and focused on the distant play of colors, with the top layer of white over an ombre of brown and green the further down his eyes traveled, intertwined with cascading waterfalls and rivers of blue from the melting snow. The uppermost portions of the mountain ranges in Wind had snow in the winter, which fed the few year-round rivers flowing through Wind, but he had never seen snow up close before. It sparkled in the sun like the Kazekage's gold dust, like the Milky Way in the desert on clear nights when there wasn't any wind to lift fine dust and sand into the air. Still, for all the display of colors and sparkles, it wasn't enough to block out the conversation.

"What – how do I put this on, Minato?"

"I'm afraid that I am sorely lacking any meaningful experience in the use of nipple shields."

"No, what do the directions say?"

"It doesn't have directions. Just pictures, see?"

"These are terrible pictures! Does that… does that look like they inverted the nipple in step two?"

"I think it's supposed to create a suction for the actual nipple to fit inside."

"All right then, so…" A wail when Hana was pried free. "Huh... Hey! It works!" The wailing turned into a series of loud sucks. "Oh, that's so much more comfortable. No pinching."

As breathtaking as the natural wonder of his surroundings were, Sasori could ill-afford to be distracted when he was seated so close to such a dangerous man. He carefully shifted (ignore the painful muscle twinges, ignoooooore) so he was angled sideways to Namikaze, covering up the intents of his actions by making himself another mug of tea (hemlock needles, this time, curious to see how it tasted). He did so without the use of his chakra threads, except when it came to reaching for the kettle and pouring the water, since it was out of his physical reach. He watched Namikaze as casually as he could.

"Obito, go join Kakashi on the patrol," Namikaze said.

"Yes, sensei."

Namikaze strung a three-pronged kunai, shrunken to the size of a decorative charm, on a chain. After he finished, he did it to another, this one with a much longer chain. He then removed a candle from a pocket, and held the end of it over the dying fireside flames.

"The blades are still sharp enough to cut Hana," Namikaze explained to Tsume when she asked him what he was doing. "I'm going to coat it in wax for her."

Tsume's eyes watered. "That's… that's so thoughtful!" And then she bawled.

Namikaze didn't look as uncomfortable as Sasori felt as he smiled gently and rubbed Tsume's knees. "I told you, Tsume, I will always be there when you need me, by hook or by crook, and I'll do the same for all of your children."

How many children did this eighteen year old woman have? Sasori knew about Tsume's newly-adopted boy, and her current baby, and technically speaking, probably Kakashi, but the way Namikaze phrased it, it sounded like she had a dozen urchins running around underfoot.

After the kunai-charm had been coated with enough wax to look like a round marble, Namikaze gentle flattened it into an oblong pendant, and then cooled it with a gentle fuuton breeze. He covered the wax with a coating of pink nail polish ("Hey, that's the birthday present I gave Rin-chan last year!"), and then laid it balanced on a knee as he withdrew a small, closed flask of chakra ink and a paint brush with a fine tip – the sort Sasori has used to painstakingly used to paint freckles on Komushi's face after he realized that the lacquer had obscured them.

(Hemlock needle tea, Sasori discovered, tasted refreshingly minty with a strong undertone of citrus. It would've been better with honey, he decided, but it wasn't unobjectionable. Until he accidentally swallowed some of the needles and felt his esophagus scraped from each and every sharp point. Irritated, he used his chakra threads to pluck them out of his tea and discard them off to the side.)

Squinting, his nose nearly brushing against the wax pendant, Namikaze painted a fuuinjutsu seal with clean, graceful strokes, the lines so small it was unreadable from where Sasori was sitting.

"What's that for?" Tsume asked, leaning forward to watch.

"You used your blood to trigger the alert I have on yours," Namikaze said absently. "Hana doesn't have a way of doing that. This will alert me if her chakra weakens or disappears. That should only happen in an emergency, since her chakra should grow as she ages."

Tsume teared up at that, and then she scrubbed her leaking eyes and nose with her sleeve. "I'm sorry, Minato. I'm just an emotional, hormonal wreck right now." After a pause, she said, "I guess I should accept those babysitters."

Minato paused long enough to send Tsume a smile filled with the warmest affection that Sasori had ever seen in his remembered life.

(His parents had looked at him like that, right? He was sure they had, the last time he had seen them, after dinner and they had sent him to bed with promises of a hearty breakfast the next morning. A promise that they had never kept…)

"I'm glad, Tsume. And I promise that you'll love the volunteers."

"Who did you find?"

"Well, I only found one. The Hokage dug up the other two, and they insisted on bringing a fourth."

Great. Sasori was going to be surrounded by Konoha scum – a hormonal new mother and her annoying crotch dropping, two massive ninken who were judgey and mistrusting, and four more Konoha ninja. Just what… just what value did a brain-damaged simpleton have to the Hokage that he would readily allow an entire squad of ninja accompany her? It wasn't like she was head of the more important clans, like the Uchiha or Nara. And as much of a danger Sasori represented, as important as he was politically as the grandson to an esteemed Elder and Poison Queen of Suna, part-time apprentice to the Kazekage, and great-nephew-by-marriage to the Wind Daimyo, Sasori didn't warrant being guarded by five Konoha nin… unless the Hokage had decided to capitalize on the opportunity to solidify the strained, tenuous Suna-Konoha/Wind-Fire relationship, since Konoha had so few allies after the Second Shinobi War.

Well, that made the most sense, Sasori figured, as he drained the dregs of his hemlock tea. A simpleton like Tsume may have only understood Sasori's importance when Kokoro had explained the political powder keg they had stumbled into at the sabotaged oasis, but the Hokage knew how to seize an opportunity when it presented itself.

After completing the fuuinjutsu seal on the wax pendant, Namikaze put it on Hana, around her abdomen.

"I'm glad you didn't try to put it around her neck. It would be a choking hazard," Tsume said. She cradled Hana belly-down against the length of her arm and burped her as Namikaze closed and secured her hanten, and then swept Tsume's now-dry hair away from her neck so he could place the other kunai-charm around her neck. Once the chain was secure, Namikaze clasped one large hand on the back of Tsume's neck, and pressed his forehead against hers.

"Thank you," Namikaze breathed. "Thank you for trusting me, for calling me when you did, for asking for my help instead of trying to do everything by yourself."

Tsume grinned and kissed Namikaze's forehead. "Oh Mooncalf. I know I don't have to prove anything with you."

Sasori felt oddly intrusive and out of place.

"And there's nothing you need to prove to your escort. I promise. It'll be like a fun little road trip."

Sasori hardly saw how a squad of Konoha nin sneaking through enemy territory and skirting around skirmishes would qualify as a fun little road trip. Granted, he wasn't familiar with the clan history of the Inuzuka, although even in Wind they had a reputation for being untamed and animalistic. Especially Tsume's aunt, Inuzuka Natsumi. Maybe this was the Inuzuka ideal for fun little road trips?

"The road trip so far has seriously lacked fun, Minato."

"Oh? But you always enjoy romping with the gouka inugami when you take them for picnics in the Forest of Death."

Tsume carefully touched one of the sores on her cheek as her fingertips glowed green. The sore shrank under her touch, new skin blooming, pinker than the rest of the skin on her face. "Hanzo was totally the opposite of a picnic."

Did it surprise Sasori that Tsume would cheerfully summon hellspawn for something as inane as a picnic? No. Because that was the sort of tomfoolery he expected from someone too stupid to realize how dangerous it was to play around with such a summon.

And with that particular insight, Sasori sourly realized that the Hokage wasn't so much capitalizing on Sasori's political worth as he was probably trying to keep Tsume from somehow thoughtlessly turning the neutral country of Waterfall into a hostile enemy of Konoha.

"Heal the rest of those, please, Tsume." Namikaze stood, studied Sasori with a neutral expression for a wordless moment, and then walked away. "I have to go now. I'll be back in just a few minutes. Rin, once I've brought Tsume's company, we need to get going, too. Notify Kakashi and Obito."

Rin acknowledged Namikaze with a single, clipped nod. A three-pronged kunai twirled through Namikaze's fingers for a moment, and then he was gone.

With Hana asleep in the crook of Tsume's arm, Tsume opted not to heal the other sores on her face, and instead one-handed sealed away the tea kettle and mugs – frowning, briefly, at the crack she found in one, then shrugged and said it wasn't anything that couldn't be fixed with some food-safe epoxy – and handed the sealed scroll to Rin. She then scrutinized a packaged cloth that identified itself, in floral script, as OKURUMI – PLUM STYLE

"Oooh, it's linen," Tsume muttered, fingering the material. It was a long, rectangular dove-grey woven fabric, decorated with elaborate branches of plum blossoms and leaves, with wrens perched in various poses on the branches. She studied the pictures and instructions on the back of the package as she carefully cradled Hana in her lap and secured the front of her. "Carrier, carrier…. Huh." She twisted and craned her neck, eyebrows twitching. "Well, can't be that hard. It's just like origami."

Kakashi appeared at her side. "You're terrible with origami, Aunt Tsume."

"Am not! My cranes are glorious!"

"Your cranes look like defective muffins." Tsume whined as Kakashi yanked the material free from her hand. "And you can barely make heads or tails out of pictorial instructions."

"You're cruel, Kakashi. And I'll remind you that I carried you in a sling!"

"This is more traditional than the one you and dad used for me," Kakashi replied. "Dad's arm was recovering from surgery when I was born, and I got too big and squirmy to stuff down your shirt." He tossed the package into the fire, the smoke billowing black as it melted, and then laid the material on the ground. Patiently, like a parent teaching a small child a lesson, Kakashi explained and demonstrated where to fold and twist the material to swaddle and then wrap the ends to keep Hana secure while supporting her neck at the same time.

In all fairness, Sasori admittedly grudgingly, it seemed more complicated than an origami crane.

Kakashi made Tsume practice the folding and tucking as Hana slept quietly in Tsume's lap before Tsume carefully laid the infant on the material, and practiced swaddling her until Kakashi was satisfied. And then she had to practice securing Hana to the center of her chest, complaining when the folds around her neck and shoulders unevenly distributed the weight.

"That's why you're supposed to be able to tie it here," Kakashi said, tugging the knotted ends lower on Tsume's back. "It's supposed to distribute the weight to your lower back." Tsume still had lingering lordosis from her pregnancy, so the knot kept slipping upward. They eventually managed to solve the problem by tying the material in the front, just under Hana's feet, though it was a struggle when there was barely enough material to make a secure knot.

"I can always go back to stuffing infants down my shirt," Tsume muttered, trying to smooth a pinching wrinkle in the fabric beneath her armpit.

"And then you wouldn't have both arms free if you have to fight for your life, Aunt Tsume," Kakashi said, his voice both resigned and concerned, as he tugged the wrinkle smooth for her.

Ah. Sasori wasn't sure how close Kakashi was to Tsume, given his embarrassed absence during her labor and the distance he maintained afterwards, but the love and affection was now obvious, expressed through guarded actions instead of words.

Hatred and resentment burned deep in Sasori's gut at the thought of Kakashi being raised by a loving father and aunt, and provided with everything that Sakumo had stolen from Sasori. (Suna had little information on Kakashi's mother, other than she had been Tsume's older sister who was killed during the Second War; Tsume fostered Kakashi after his father's fall from grace three years ago, because no one could reasonably agree that Kakashi's status as a five-year-old genin meant he should avail himself to the legal freedom of adulthood that was otherwise given to all Konoha shinobi.)

At the sudden burn of hatred and resentment, Kakashi, Ichi, and Tsume's heads swiveled to face him, and Sasori suddenly remembered Tsume, smeared in a paste of crushed geranium and clay, explaining how he stank of hatred and spite. He hadn't really considered the fact that she somehow managed to sniff out emotions, but it made sense, since emotions were nothing more than hormones and electrical signals in the brain. If she could sniff out arsenic in an oasis a hundred kilometers away, then how difficult was it to smell brain chemistry?

Inuzuka Tsume truly would make a marvelous puppet, Sasori decided.

Luckily, Namikaze's return immediately distracted Tsume, along with the new presence of two adults and a dark bay-colored horse with long black mane and tail. And a toddler astride said horse.

"Juubi!" Tsume shrieked (quietly, lest she disturb her sleeping baby) as she surged to her feet to greet the newcomers.

(That was… an ominous name.)

The new arrivals didn't distract Kakashi, who took advantage of Tsume's loud greetings to the horse to mask his whisper to Sasori, "If you harm her or Hana, I will hunt you to the ends of the world. You won't even live to regret what you'd done." And with his threat so solemnly delivered, Kakashi stuffed his hands into his pockets and sauntered over to his sensei.

Well, that would certainly make turning Tsume into a puppet rather difficult, since the process of converting a rotting human corpse into a viable puppet was a grueling four-week affair that required staying in one place. (Although Sasori was sure, having gone through the process once, that he would be more efficient and timely with his next human puppet.)

He'd just have to kill Kakashi before he turned Tsume into a puppet, but time it perfectly to avoid Tsume's subsequent lecture. Or… or he could just kill both at the same time and turn them both into puppets? Sasori stroked Komushi's hand and decided that having two puppets with two magnificent noses was a good idea.

He shifted his hips around to face his apparent guard/escort (seriously? A horse?), but was interrupted when the toddler leapt from the horse's back, cleared the distance between the small group and Sasori in a single bound, and landed breathlessly in front of Sasori, bending his knees to absorb the impact of landing.

"Hi!" declared the toddler, which was a dark-eyed boy with a head full of soft, dark curls barely restrained by a blue headband centered across his forehead. "My name is Uchiha Shisui! What's your name?"

… What? Why?

Minato: stay away from the dangerous, suspicious Suna nin.

Tsume: oh, he's perfectly harmless.

Everyone else: no, no, he's totally the opposite of harmless.

Tsume: he wants me to be with him. Me, a walking disaster. He wants me to be around him because he thinks my nose is awesome. :D

Minato: you've been skipping your self-esteem therapy again, haven't you?